Current and/or prospective customers of an organization may receive customer service support through a variety of mechanisms including via an online platform, through electronic mail or other electronic communication tools, and/or through telephone interaction. Despite the introduction of alternative platforms, telephone interaction remains a common vehicle for obtaining customer service support. Often, customers seeking customer service support via telephone may be placed on hold for several minutes before being routed to a live agent to receive assistance. Further, customers may be required to navigate through a series of automated menu options prior to being placed on hold which may increase frustration with the customer service experience. While waiting to speak with a live agent, a customer may be presented with general information regarding various product or service offerings. In some scenarios, music may be played or other techniques employed to entertain the customer and minimize the customer's potential frustration with being placed on hold.
More recently, use of interactive voice response (IVR) technology to provide a variety of customer service functions has become commonplace. A customer may interact with an IVR-enabled system by providing voice and/or dual-tone multi frequency (DTMF) input to the system. The IVR-enabled system may receive the customer input and perform any of a variety of customer service-related functions such as presenting prerecorded or dynamically generated audio to the customer that addresses the customer's inquiries, executing account transactions, and so forth. One of the goals associated with the introduction and use of IVR-enabled systems is a reduction in call volumes requiring the assistance of live customer service representatives (CSRs), and thus, a reduction in the number of CSRs that must be employed by an organization. IVR systems have also been employed with the goal of reducing an average wait time for customers to receive customer service assistance.
However, despite the increased use of IVR systems, a large number of customers seeking customer service assistance continue to rely on interaction with a live agent as a means for obtaining such assistance such as in scenarios involving non-routine actions and/or problem resolution. Further, customer frustration with being placed on hold to speak with a CSR continues to be a significant issue as at that point, the customer is generally experiencing a problem requiring expedient resolution. Moreover, organizations may fail to effectively utilize customer hold time to the organization's advantage.